Letter: Incremental changes

The Courier editorial, “Let’s talk about solutions to gun violence,” is a good start. Senator Jeff Flake’s proposal, “…too young (to) buy a handgun…to young to buy an AR-15,” is a minimalist but positive action.

However, it is still vehemently rejected by the NRA. Donald Grier of the Prescott Gun Club, according to the Courier editorial, stated [what about the fact that] “most firearm crimes involve handguns, so raising the age does not matter.” This is the “what about…” argument often used to distract and confuse. We are talking about the ability of a child to buy an AR-15 assault rifle, not a handgun. Thus, age certainly matters, since the weapon of choice in school shootings is the AR-15, not a handgun.

Other positive incremental changes would be closing the gun show and private sale loopholes, enforcing universal background checks, and outlawing bump stocks and large-capacity magazines. The NRA argument is that none of this would have stopped the other school shootings so they don’t matter. I say make these incremental changes, and together they will make a difference down the road.

In addition, put pressure on our Congress to stop taking money from the NRA, … Rubio (R) $3.3M, Sanford Bishop (D) $50K. In the 2016 cycle Republicans $5.9M, Democrats $106K. Both parties are complicit in the deadlock of change.

Finally, Kudos to the scores of companies that are cutting ties with the NRA, and Dicks for halting sale of assault rifles, and Walmart for raising the age to 21.